Thomas Jefferson was alive when the majestic black walnut tree in John Hart’s front yard sprouted in rural Maryland, but the Kansas native’s road from young congressional aide to leading a government watchdog group wasn’t nearly so long.
“Every Dime. Online. In Real Time.” is the Hinsdale, Illinois-based watchdog’s trademark and “Join the Transparency Revolution” its rallying cry. Hart has been at the center of that revolution for a long time.
Craig Mijares, a co-founder of OTB and its longtime chief operating officer, sees Hart providing leadership to take the organization and the transparency-in-government movement to the next stage of digital possibilities.
“John intrinsically understands that transparency can transform the way we govern ourselves, and his decades of experience behind the curtain will offer us new opportunities to get our data into the conversations where it can make a difference,” Mijares told the Epoch Times.
“Having supported it since Open the Books was just a kernel of an idea, he’s the ideal person to build on our achievements,” Mijares said.
After a career on Capitol Hill that started years ago as an intern for Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kans.), Hart has lived the life of a gentleman farmer for the past six years, growing corn, soybeans, and wheat and raising goats on his picturesque spread, while simultaneously co-founding and managing multiple entrepreneurial endeavors and partnerships in the communications, climate, and emerging technology fields.
When Andrzejewski started OTB in 2008, Hart was communications director and close adviser to Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). A couple years earlier, Coburn introduced the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA), a landmark piece of legislation in a long-running effort by individuals and groups across the ideological spectrum to make government more transparent.
Andrzejewski, then a successful young commercial publishing executive in 2007, shared with Coburn and Hart his vision that government spending at all levels, not just in the nation’s capital, should be transparent. Forming OTB was the next step, aided greatly by Coburn and Hart.
“We had wagered that putting federal spending online would create downward pressure on spending and tilt the scales toward freedom for decades,” Hart told The Epoch Times. “Adam Andrzejewski proved us right. When Adam contacted us and kept contacting our office, we knew our legislative work would bear fruit.”
What resulted from OTB is an accessible, data-rich public resource that captures critically important details on most federal spending, as well as that of the 50 state governments and every major city in the country.
There is also data on millions of public employee salaries and pensions. The data, which is continually refreshed, is obtained using public information statutes like the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and its state-level equivalents.
Even though such laws make clear the public’s right to have this information, OTB often has to take on costly court battles to obtain it. In a typical year, OTB will file more than 50,000 FOIA requests.
But he also plans to expand the use of technology to help develop new digital tools that can, for example, not only track what has been spent by government but also project the impact of multiple potential future spending scenarios.
“The question too often is what should government do to constrain technology,” Hart told The Epoch Times, pointing to sensational media and entertainment industry images of artificial intelligence (AI) abuses. “We want to flip the script and ask what can technology do to constrain government.”
Hart says he is mindful of the potential abuses of advanced technologies like AI, but he believes using technology to learn how to do things faster and easier can be a powerful incentive for people of all political stripes and help find the common reality of what is actually possible through government.
He points to quantum computing as the key to developing the exponentially immense processing power and capabilities to do what he calls “predictive analytics of government spending.” The creation of OTB’s vast spending database was the critical first step in that direction, Hart believes.
Doing that requires merging “quantum computing and transparency, then feeding it. ... We have all this data and if we can build new tools, new algorithms, new models ... then we can help each new generation think more clearly about these things,” he said.
One of the biggest obstacles to such clarity at present is what Hart sees as the “competing realities” seen by Americans who are progressive and those who are independent and conservative.
“When you think about why is our politics so dysfunctional, it’s because there are very few shared realities. If you are a progressive, you can spend all of your time watching those news sources. If you are a conservative, you can do the same. But if you want to understand all sides, you really have to work at it.
“It’s like the debate on federal spending, Progressives call it ‘investment,’ conservatives call it ’redistribution.' Let’s figure out who is right, let’s commit our perspectives to reality” by harnessing the power of data, Hart said.
Hart is confident that the Transparency Revolution will ultimately win.
“What’s the argument against transparency?” he asks. “There are two choices. You can have a society with a culture of surveillance, secrecy, lies, and deception, or you can have one based on transparency, trust, and truth.”
Bret Bernhardt, the former chief of staff for retired Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Don Nickles (R-Okla.), who helped Hart secure his first job on Capitol Hill, is not surprised by such optimism.
“When we first met, John demonstrated qualities that have served him well. This was evident early on as he looked for his first job on the Hill. He exhibited both smarts and affability, which is rare in Washington. I remember seeing in John genuine sincerity, deep faith, and a keen intellect. I knew he would be a great value to any member,” Bernhardt told the Epoch Times.
“And moreover, as a taxpayer, I’m excited that the organization will thrive and provide more sunlight where it’s most desperately needed. America needs many more Transparency Revolutionaries like John Hart,” Bond said.
